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An stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of local people set about memorialising their past. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the locals socializing in the identical pub, visiting the very same religious building and sending their young ones to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they occupied the whole hamlet, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a time, residents could continue to cross over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how much structure they desired to keep. They chose a stretch on the west fringe, close to where a villager succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are conserved in addition to a series of displays depicting the most dramatic moments in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Farmers required particular approval to look after their fields; the partner could work the combine harvester but never the two, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but more than two times more individuals (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. About 15k came to see each year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and big car park – is probable to